


After Ascension

by bluemoodblue



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Ascension Zone AU, Slice of Life, but as gods, i can't believe this is the first actual thing i've written with this au, i guess, the IPRE as gods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-04
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-29 11:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12629997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemoodblue/pseuds/bluemoodblue
Summary: A girl named Suzanne carries a dish of food into a temple, and hopes that it is enough. It’s her mother’s best recipe, carried in her family’s best china, and created meticulously by someone still uncertain in the kitchen. It’s certainly not much, Suzanne can admit to herself, but even so - even so, she hopes it is enough.





	After Ascension

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe I've never written something for this AU? Well I have now and it probably won't be the last thing, so we'll see how this works out. And hey, I finally have something to show for nano! Hopefully there will be More Things!

A girl named Suzanne carries a dish of food into a temple, and hopes that it is enough. It’s her mother’s best recipe, carried in her family’s best china, and created meticulously by someone still uncertain in the kitchen. It’s certainly not much, Suzanne can admit to herself, but even so - even so, she hopes it is enough.

The room for offerings is past the many rooms for classes, all of them open and set in circular areas. Suzanne does not know the layout from experience, because her family has never set foot in this temple; they barely frequent the one next door. She had to ask one of the children who lived here, yesterday, if the building was set up the same way. They gave her directions. Past all of the classrooms, all the way in the back. Just keep walking ‘till you get to an altar. The classrooms don’t look like Suzanne’s classrooms, but things are taught differently in the temple. She lives too far away to attend here, and even if she was closer she is certain it wouldn’t be allowed.

Suzanne reaches the altar, and a man is already there. He turns to look at her, and he has a very lovely face. His long hair is pulled back into a braid. He smiles in a mischievous way and asks her what she’s doing out of bed.

She holds up the dish, meticulously created, wrapped in fine china. The man beckons her over, and once she’s right in front of him, lifts the lid. He doesn’t frown, but he isn’t smiling. “You’re going to leave food for the god of cooking? Awfully presumptuous.”

Suzanne shrugs, because she already knew that. “I have to try something. I want to be a chef when I grow up.”

“And what’s stopping you,” he asks.

“My mother says if I become a chef, I will anger the gods and our family will be cursed.”

The man hums. “Why would the gods be angry? Have you done something?”

Suzanne shakes her head. “Not me, or anyone in my family that I’ve met. But I’m an ancestor of a man who tried to kill one of the gods. His name was Sazed.”

The man makes a noise of understanding, and hands the dish back to Suzanne. “A good enough reason. This offering will never do, though. If you want to make an offering worthy of a god, come back tomorrow and I’ll teach you how.”

She is disappointed, but she supposes she’s lucky. She was steps away from leaving an unworthy gift on the altar for Taako, a dangerous misstep.

Suzanne returns the next day for her lesson. It’s held within the temple, on the side closest to Lup’s temple which is filled with fire. The kitchens of the buildings connect.

The man is there and waiting for her, and gestures to a basket of ingredients. His instructions aren’t as precise as Suzanne thought they would be, but she does he best to keep up with the vague information and unusual methods.

At the end of the lesson, the man gestures to Suzanne, and she brings him a dish of food. He doesn’t eat it, but tells her that she’s not ready yet and will have to come back for another lesson.

Suzanne always comes back, and the man always tells her she’s not ready yet.

Eventually, Suzanne grows frustrated. She knows she’s learning more with every visit, and she knows her cooking is improving rapidly, but there’s never any acknowledgement of her progress. He only ever says the same thing, he only ever makes the same face at her food. One day she asks him: “Am I improving?”

And he asks her: “Are you improving?”

Suzanne tastes her own food after that. The more she does, the more she can taste the subtle differences, and the more she knows by instinct what a recipe needs. Sometimes, even though the man tells her to use a certain ingredient or to flip a pan a certain way, she does something differently because she thinks it would be better. While the man still tells her she’s not ready, he starts to smile at her more and instruct her less.

Years pass with these lessons in the temple. Suzanne learns more about cooking than she knew there was to learn, both from herself and the man. She’s proud of her progress, but she’s not weighed down with any impression that she knows everything there is to know; instead, she is excited at the prospect that she will never know everything about her craft. There will always be room to grow. There will always be new things for her to discover.

Suzanne is in one of the temple’s kitchens by herself one day, cooking a recipe she had the idea for the night before. She tastes it, and it could use some work, but it’s delightfully close to her idea. She turns to add a few spices to the pot, and the man is there.

She greets him, but he doesn’t answer. He picks up a bowl of the soup and tastes it.

The moment feels important, and Suzanne holds her breath. The man’s face is unreadable for a long moment, and then he smiles. “This is an offering worthy of a god.”

Suzanne frowns. “It’s not finished, though. It’s not as good as it could be.”

The man’s smile widens. “You’re not a bit like Sazed. He wanted the answers given to him. He wanted to know everything. He had no curiosity, only greed and the mistaken idea that it would be easy to learn a craft - he never actually wanted to learn.” The man places the bowl down on the counter and walks closer to her. He leans over and kisses her gently on the forehead. “You should tell your family that they don’t need to fear curses from the gods.”

Suzanne is not convinced that her offering is ready, and after the man leaves, she continues to work. When she is more satisfied, she ladles soup into a bowl - a regular bowl, because fine china is nice but her offering is her cooking, not her dishware. She passes a mirror on the way to the altar.

There is the impression of something shining, and she hesitates. She goes to the mirror, and on her forehead is the small, shining emblem of the Seven Birds.

Her offering has already been accepted.

~~~

_ In a sprawling house in the Celestial Plane, filled with light and life, Taako frowns down at book. It’s a holy text from his own temple. “What the fuck, Lucretia, this doesn’t sound like me. I don’t fucking talk like that.” _

_ Lucretia doesn't look up. “You said fuck to a child. They edited you.” _

_ There is a screech of outrage. “I’m about to say a lot more words for them to fucking edit! The fuck!” _

_ A door slams and Lucretia sighs. Third time this week. The scribes really ought to know better by now. _

**Author's Note:**

> This happens all the time. Lucretia knew this was coming.
> 
> (Also Taako isn't the god of teaching for nothing you know.)
> 
> (Suzanne may come to regret being taught by a god, he's going to bug her endlessly from now to eternity. Sorry Suzanne, your blessing is also your curse.)


End file.
